U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is looking for a change in direction in Trump's trade policies

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa, is no fan of President Trump's costly tariffs and believes they are doing some damage to not only Pennsylvania businesses but America's economy as a whole.

So he believes a change in direction is needed and came to Harrisburg on Tuesday to gather first-hand accounts to help him make that point to Trump.

Sitting with a group of 21 business and industrial leaders at the Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association headquarters just down the street from the state Capitol, Toomey got what he came for.

He heard the tariff on tinplate, a type of steel use that container manufacturer BWAY Corp. of York uses in making cans, is making it hard to compete with cans manufactured overseas. It's nearing the point that company executive vice president Leslie Bradshaw said the company is starting to question whether they need to move their production a and jobs a to another country.

Nicolas Bisaccia of Bingaman & Son Lumber Inc. in Snyder County said the market uneasiness from the trade wars and retaliatory tariffs have hurt his sales of hardwood to China, the primary consumer of American hardwood. What's more, he said this trade war has the potential to put smaller mom and pop lumber companies out of business.

Sheila Borne of Penn State Health spoke of the adverse impact the tariffs are having on the contingency costs associated with the expansion of the Penn State Children's Hospital.

Jessica Meyers of Harrisburg-based JEM Group, a commercial builder, spoke of a public project that got delayed but how the cost of wood for it increased by 20 percent and steel by 35 percent as a result of the tariffs. She told Toomey the project is still going to be built but it will be reduced in scope as a result of the price change.

David Black, president and CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber, added that there are other businesses he knows of that aren't in a position to say what impact the tariffs are having on them but he fears, "the worst is yet to come."

Toomey shared with the group that Trump "knows exactly what I think. He knows we disagree very much on this" trade war that the president is waging with foreign countries. But he shared he has reason to think that the president may come around on this issue.

"I think in some cases senators have persuaded him not to do something that he probably was inclined to do. So though we're concerned with some of the developments arguably they could have been worse," Toomey said.

The president's use of tariffs is all about gaining leverage to achieve other objectives from trade partners.

In China's case, he said it's to stop the theft of American intellectual property. In the case of Mexico and Canada, it's to renegotiate terms to the North American Free Trade Agreement that the U.S. has with those countries.

Toomey questioned that strategy as well as the president's authority to impose the tariffs.

"It's my view the president invoking national security as the justification for imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imported from places like Canada, Mexico and the European Union is a misuse of that," he said. "I think it's long past time for Congress to take that responsibility back.

Toomey said the measure doesn't yet have the votes to pass but he is willing to continue having discussions with the Trump Administration "if that gets us to the right place."

The bottom line, the senator said, is the American economy is robust right now and the tariffs that have been imposed so far are "narrow enough and doesn't appear to have done deep damage yet."

But he added if the tariffs increase and/or are expanded to more goods or more countries that could become a threat to "what so far has been a really, really strong economic story and I want the strong story to continue."